


Snow angel

by DefaultJane



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, F/F, Mutual Pining, No Smut, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaultJane/pseuds/DefaultJane
Summary: Yasha and Beau have time to kill and decide to take a moment to experience what is marketed to them as the “authentic sauna experience” by the eccentric woman they meet at Balenpost, said experience including hanging out naked, washing each other’s hair, talking and laughing late into the night...You know, just gals being pals.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	Snow angel

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place around episode 114, when they are at Balenpost and have 40 hours to kill, shortly after the snow fight, prior to Yasha giving the poem.

Beau finished putting away the supplies she’d acquired for the upcoming venture and examined her belongings, fairly confident she had everything she needed. Now all she needed to do was...to wait for roughly another 36 hours before they would be ready to get going. She supposed she could read or get drunk, or maybe start another snow fight with her friends, but honestly, she didn’t feel like doing any of those things. Frankly, she didn’t know what she felt like doing exactly. 

_Huh,_ she thought as she glanced outside and saw Yasha standing some distance away from the building, staring into the field of snow with her hands on her hips, looking like she was trying to make out something in the distance, unable to quite see. Beau exited the room and went outside, pausing to stand next to Yasha, who acknowledged her presence with a small nod.

“What are you looking at?”  
“There’s a small cabin out there, and I think I saw someone come out naked and roll in the snow before running back in,” Yasha said and Beau’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Must’ve been a sight to see,” she commented.  
“I could be wrong, but if I am not, makes me wonder what would make someone do that.”

“Wanna go check it out?” Beau grinned.  
“I don’t know. Yes. Kind of. I guess.”

“I’ll go with you. Come on.”  
“Oh, all right,” Yasha nodded and followed Beau as she began to lead the way through the side entrance to the fortress. They crossed the snowy plain heading toward the small cluster of runtish pine trees surrounding the cabin located a little over four hundred yards away from the fortress. 

Beau headed to the door to knock, but before she could, a human woman stepped out. She was dressed in thick black trousers and a gray tight knit wool shirt, a long black leather coat over that. On her head she wore a wool cap, the end of a dirty blonde braid peeking out from underneath it. She was as pale as Yasha and almost as tall, too. 

“Mitäs asiaa teillä on?” she spoke and Beau could hear a hint of surprise in her voice but at the same time she couldn’t tell if she was being scolded or hit on because whatever she said and whatever the language, it sounded very harsh.   
“Uhh, we’re, uhm—” Beau stammered and the woman sighed.

“What do you want?” she asked in common, her accent very slightly similar to Yasha’s but much rougher around the edges, sounding almost like a bunch of rocks colliding.   
“Nothing exactly, we just came by to check your, uh...hut?” Yasha offered and the woman quirked an eyebrow.

“You here to rent?”  
“Well, we weren’t aware that there was anything to rent. Honestly, we’re just looking around out of curiosity because we have some excess time to spare and we’re new here...you know...?” Beau trailed off and the woman’s lips curved into a smirk. 

“You pay three gold and you get this for a day. The price includes water, wood and _vihta_ .”  
“A what, and what are we renting?” Yasha frowned.

“Here’s three gold, tell me everything, start with your name,” Beau said and handed the coins over without even waiting for the woman to answer. “I’m Beau, and this is Yasha,” she then said to get the introductions going.

“Inkeri,” she responded, patted her chest twice with her fingers for emphasis and pocketed the coins. “And what you’re renting is a sauna. Not to be confused with what might pass as one in the bathhouses down South, those are measly steam rooms, this is a _sauna,_ ” she then said.  
“Okay,” Yasha said slowly. “And what’s a, um, vi—what’s-it-called?” 

Inkeri opened the door and waved at them to follow. Beau and Yasha glanced at each other and Beau shrugged, smiled and followed, Yasha entering after her. 

“Vihta!” Inkeri said, and held up what seemed to be a bunch of birch branches tied together. It was about a foot and half long, the leaves oddly still intact if a little withered. Beau wondered where Inkeri had even found branches in this environment. Unless the branches were imported, but that sounded insane, who would import something like that for...whatever its purpose was. 

“And what do I do with it?” Yasha asked, taking the words from Beau’s mouth.  
“You hit with it,” Inkeri said and raised her arm, slapping the branches against her back to model the action. 

“But why?” Yasha frowned, and Inkeri sighed deeply again, visibly irritated by their ignorance regarding what she was talking about. 

“Let’s start from the beginning. Take your coats and boots off and leave them here,” Inkeri began, removing her own and pausing to wait for Beau and Yasha to follow her example. Yasha shrugged and kicked her boots off, Beau doing the same. Inkeri then opened the thick door leading into the next room and waved Yasha and Beau through into the room beyond, a small window to the side decorated with frost so you could barely see through it, a dim white light glowing in from it as what little daylight there was left was reflected in the snow outside to make the environment appear a little lighter than it would’ve been without the snow.

There was a pile of chopped wood stacked by the wall, four large buckets full of melting snow sitting in a row in front of the pile; the room was noticeably warmer than the previous one, Beau realized. On the wall opposite to those was a comfortable-looking if somewhat narrow bed, the corner of a thick, presumably very warm fur hanging over the edge of it.

“This is where you undress,” Inkeri said, and without missing a beat, Yasha began to undo the belt around her waist.  
“Not right now!” Inkeri hurried to interrupt. “Later, when you’re getting ready to wash up,” she explained. 

“Oh, so this _is_ like a bathhouse situation?” Beau asked and Inkeri deadpanned at her for a long moment, not answering the question but instead turning and muttering something in her native tongue, and judging from her tone, Beau figured it wasn’t anything flattering. 

Beyond one more thick door was the much-talked-about sauna itself. In the corner was an iron stove that had a pile of rocks stacked neatly on the top. Attached to it was a half moon shaped container full of water, a tap protruding from the side of it.   
The floor was made of stone, but there was a wooden catwalk built over it to prevent one from having to stand barefoot on the cold stone while making their way over to the benches opposite to the stove. There was a narrow, kind of an aqueduct in the middle of the stone floor, running under the benches, leading out through a small hole in the back wall. Beau figured that was where the used water would exit.

“You make a fire, it boils the water so you’ll have hot water to use for bathing. The fire also heats up the stones, you pour water on the stones, steam heats up the room.”  
“So...it’s a steam room, or some kind of a sweat lodge,” Beau said.

“No! It’s a sauna.”  
“What’s the difference?”

“Don’t insult me.”  
“I didn’t—okay,” Beau muttered. 

“And you don’t _throw_ water on the stones, pour it over the stones, understand?”  
“Yes ma’am,” Beau said, barely managing to contain the mocking tone from creeping into her voice.

“Sit in the heat, relax, wash up—”  
“Flog yourself with the vihta,” Yasha interjected and Beau snorted.

“Yes. It’s good for you. Prevents infection. Cleans your skin too. But if you don’t want it, I’ll be happy to take it with me,” Inkeri narrowed her eyes at Beau’s reaction.  
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Yasha said and nudged Beau in the ribs with her elbow. 

“Riiight,” Inkeri drawled and continued with her lesson on what apparently was, if not local customs, then at the very least her own. “After a while, you go outside and roll in the snow and come back.”  
“Why would anyone do that?” Beau frowned, Inkeri’s words confirming Yasha’s initial suspicion that she had indeed witnessed someone roll naked in the snow earlier.

“It’s good for you,” Inkeri said once more.  
“Sure,” Beau muttered, unconvinced. 

“What’s this for?” Yasha asked, grabbed a cast iron skillet from the benches across the stove.   
“For cooking.”

“There’s a kitchen too?” Yasha blinked in surprise.  
“ _Voi hyvä Luoja”,_ Inkeri muttered, rolling her eyes. “No. You can put the skillet on the stones and cook something in it after you’re done washing up, just make sure you don’t get any grease on the stones or I’ll kill you. However, if you add a bit of ale into the water you pour over the stones, it’ll smell like bread in here,” she explained. 

“Nice, we gotta try that,” Beau said enthusiastically.  
“Bring your own towel and soap. Bring your own ale and food. Oh, and if you decide to drink the ale while in there, don’t drink more than a couple of mugs, if you get drunk you might pass out and hurt yourself, and I am not cleaning that up. Have a nice relaxing night...and be gone by noon tomorrow,” Inkeri said and with that, she marched out of the building abruptly.

“Well...she was...weird,” Yasha commented after she’d gone.  
“Coming from you, that’s saying something,” Beau teased, and Yasha chuckled in agreement.

“Should we invite the others?” Beau asked a while later as they walked back to the fortress to grab something to cook on the sauna stove, and to grab some ale. In all honesty, she didn’t really want to invite them. As much as she loved her friends, and as nervous as the thought made her, she kind of wanted to spend time alone with Yasha. 

“Well, it might get crowded if we do,” Yasha said in a mumble. “Unless you want to, I suppose we could take turns or something?”  
“No, no, I...don’t relish the idea of standing in the cold waiting for my turn in the _sauna_ ,” Beau said, exaggerating the pronunciation to imitate Inkeri’s way of saying the word, and Yasha chuckled. 

“Yeah, and I don’t think the others would enjoy having to do that either,” Yasha agreed.  
“Exactly, so let’s just keep this between us, maybe let Fjord know where we are so they won’t panic and think we’re missing.”

“Good idea.”

* * *

The wooden bench creaked under Yasha’s weight as she stepped up and took a seat next to Beau, their sides almost touching, the proximity causing both to swallow hard, hoping the other wouldn’t notice. Somewhat ironically, the fact that they were both naked didn’t faze either of them; modesty wasn’t a luxury you could afford when traveling the way the Mighty Nein had, and they’d all seen each other in various stages of undress and thought nothing more of it. 

What was different now was the closeness, the unspoken intimacy of it being just the two of them. Beau mentally shook herself to rid those thoughts, grabbed the scoop used to pour water over the hot stones and leaned over the banister to do so. Yasha dipped the vihta into the bucket of water and then held it up as Beau sat back down, the heatwave emanating from the sauna stove as the water quickly dissipated, rolling over them.

“Would you like a flogging?” Yasha asked and Beau laughed.   
“Go flog yourself.”  
"I knew you would say that," Yasha shrugged and hit the branches over her chest and reached over her shoulder to get her back.

As she did that, Beau leaned back, grunting a little when her bare skin made contact with the heated wood behind her, waited a moment for her skin to adapt and rested her full weight against the wall, putting her feet up against the banister. She glanced over at Yasha in the dimly lit room, the orange glow emanating from the stove and the lantern hanging at the small window the only sources of light. Yasha didn’t seem to notice being watched so Beau took a moment to enjoy the view; the shadows emphasizing the contours of Yasha’s well-muscled arms, the drops of sweat and water gliding over her ribs, the errant birch leaves coming loose from the branches sticking to her skin. Beau was tempted to scoot closer and put her arm around Yasha’s midsection and just lean into her and— 

_I’m so fucking stupid,_ Beau thought, and turned to look at the lantern in the window instead, suddenly annoyed with herself.

It was so fucking stupid to enjoy this closeness so much. It was so fucking stupid to think anything more could come of their friendship. It was so fucking stupid to feel so fucking ecstatic over having a moment alone with Yasha, but here she fucking was.   
And then there was Yasha. Why did she have to be so fucking cool and so fucking awesome and so fucking _different_ from everyone else, why did she have to make Beau feel so fucking...she didn’t know what she felt anymore.

No, that wasn’t true. She knew what she felt, she just didn’t like feeling it. 

With Reani, with Keg, with everyone else before and in-between (with perhaps only one exception) it had been easy. It had simply been attraction laced with a little bit of lust but ultimately rooted in the mutual understanding that nothing more would come of it, temporary love without complications galore. Nothing was easy with Yasha. She didn’t seem the type who did temporary, and Beau wasn’t sure she’d know what to do with permanent even if she was offered. Not that she had been. 

She’d sworn off Yasha after learning about Zuala, after realizing Yasha was the “mates for life”-type. Beau preferred things fun, light. She preferred being free, and she preferred not having to spend her time wondering if she could ever live up to what she imagined Zuala had been for Yasha. She preferred not having to wonder when Yasha would become just one of the others who had inevitably abandoned her.

_If that’s what I really prefer then why am I so upset by the mere thought of Yasha rejecting me if I told her how I feel?_

“Inkeri was right, this does feel nice,” Yasha said, waking Beau from her thoughts.   
“Oh, yeah?” she chortled.

“Yeah. You want to try?”  
“Sure,” Beau shrugged and accepted the branches from Yasha, following her example and hitting her skin with them while Yasha poured more water on the stones. When Beau felt like she was done with the branches, she put them in the bucket of water and then noticed Yasha was staring at her.

“What?”  
“I’m sorry,” Yasha said out of the blue. 

“For wh—” Beau was about to say but the rest of the sentence fell away when she felt Yasha reach over and press her palm against the scars on Beau’s side.   
“This. And everything else, every fucking time I end up possessed or something, and do stupid shit, I’m so sorry.”

“Yasha, we’ve been over this many times, everything’s fine,” Beau assured, like she had before. She wasn’t sure what it would take to help Yasha get over it. Beau closed her eyes and inhaled slowly and deeply, placing her palm over Yasha’s hand, gently intertwining her fingers with Yasha’s and squeezing her hand firmly.

“I don’t feel like...apologizing is enough, but I don’t know what else to do either. Sometimes I just feel so...ashamed of the whole thing even though we’ve spoken of it and considered the matter closed. I’m sorry,” Yasha said, turning to sit sideways on the bench so that she could face Beau, who moved to mirror her position and gripped Yasha’s forearms. 

“It’s all right.”  
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” Yasha sighed, lowering her gaze and staring at their hands. “You know, I didn’t think you guys would come back for me. I mean, I didn’t expect you to, I didn’t want you to, I didn’t deserve it,” she said and turned her hands so that the palms faced upward, cupping Beau’s forearms. 

“We were never going to abandon you, I don’t want you to think we would’ve.”  
“I don’t, I was hoping...for all of your sake, that you would have. And when you came back, I was hoping you’d come to put me out of my misery.”

“Don’t say things like that!” Beau snapped and pulled back, crossing her arms over her abdomen agitatedly.   
“I didn’t want— I...I almost killed you.”

“Hey, no, it’s like I said earlier, it’s fine,” Beau tried dismissing it with an awkward chuckle, just like she had several times before.

She wanted to hear Yasha out, but at the same time, she didn’t really want to talk about it. It was a bad thing that had happened, there was nothing to be done about it now but move on, forgive and forget. Surprisingly, forgiving had been the easy part as far as Beau was concerned. Forgetting...not so much, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. 

Beau had very little control over what happened in her dreams and sometimes she relived that moment in her sleep, waking up sweaty, her heart racing, a stinging pressure of a phantom pain throbbing in her abdomen where Yasha had stabbed her when she’d done her best to kill Beau under Obann’s command. Contrary to what Yasha seemed to think, though, the nightmares had eased up the more time Beau had spent with Yasha. Almost as if having her near and being herself again reassured Beau there was no need to worry. 

“You weren’t yourself, I’m not blaming you,” Beau said more seriously.

“I’m blaming me. When I thought I’d killed you, I wanted to kill myself, I couldn’t”— Yasha sighed and took a moment to arrange her thoughts. “I didn’t think I’d ever see any of you again, but you came back for me, and instead of just putting me down, you saved me. You invited me to come with you afterward, even after everything I’d done.”

“Yeah, because we all knew that wasn’t you, Yasha.”  
“I don’t think Veth and Fjord were entirely convinced.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve proven them wrong many times since.”  
“No, I mean that in a weird way having them doubt me made me feel better, you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Beau admitted.  
“When you guys invited me to stay with you despite everything, I didn’t know how to feel about that because I wasn’t expecting such...kindness. And I’m grateful, of course, and more than that, I’m happy. But at the same time, I still often find myself feeling nothing but shame and hating myself over everything that happened. I want to keep apologizing over it but I know it doesn’t”—

“Yasha.”  
“Hm?”  
“Shut up,” Beau smirked.

 _Kiss her. Kiss her! For fuck’s sake, Beauregard, when did you become such a wimp, you used to kiss girls left and right at the drop of a hat,_ she mentally scolded herself. 

“...okay,” Yasha commented slowly, pulling back a little and glancing over to the sauna stove. The perfect moment to kiss her went on by and Beau wanted to slam her head into the wall for letting it slip.   
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant, you know, don’t think like that, I— we love you and you’re a part of our family, we’d never abandon one of our own. Nobody gets left behind.”

“Thanks, Beau.”  
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Beau smiled. “Wanna go roll in the snow naked?” she then changed the subject, and Yasha chuckled. 

“Let’s do it,” she agreed and headed outside, Beau following behind, regretting the decision to suggest doing this already at the room furthest away from the sauna, the temperature dropping noticeably when they got there. Yasha pushed the door open and rushed outside, the lantern hanging outside the cabin illuminating the surrounding area just enough for Beau to be able to see the steam rising off of Yasha’s skin. 

The tall woman took a couple of running steps and dove into the soft fresh snow.

“Ugh, this is insane,” Beau muttered as she stood at the door, shivering, her hands tucked under her arms.  
“Come on!” Yasha called out.

“I don’t think I wanna.”  
“Get over here, it’s not that bad!”

“I’m good here, thanks,” Beau said, and she heard Yasha make an annoyed grunt as she rolled onto her back, grabbed a handful of snow and threw it at Beau. It impacted on her chest with a heavy thud, the cold ice crystals beginning to melt quickly against her skin, slowly sliding between her breasts and over to her abdomen.

“How dare you!” she squealed. Just as Yasha was about to stand up and head back inside, Beau launched herself into her, tackling her back into the snow. Yasha took the impact and fell back, still laughing, and thrust her hips up, throwing Beau off of herself, sending her rolling in the snow before Beau had a chance to shove a fistful of snow into Yasha’s face.

“All right, all right, all right, now I have done it too, truce?” Beau said, standing up, shivering uncontrollably in the cold.   
“Okay, okay,” Yasha agreed. 

“Hey!” Beau then exclaimed when she had an idea. “Don’t get up, make a snow angel!”  
“What?” Yasha laughed, still sitting in the snow.

“Get your wings out, make a snow angel, I bet it would look cool!” Beau elaborated and Yasha considered it for a couple of seconds, stood up, and a moment later the wings erupted from her back. She used them to fly a couple of yards to the side to find an untouched patch of snow and landed into it, letting herself fall onto her back, creating the familiar shape of an angel in the snow, only instead of using her arms, she simply let her wings press against the snow to leave an imprint. 

When she was done, she took off once more and flew over to Beau. 

“What are you— oh, shit, whoa!” she yelped when Yasha picked her up with ease in that familiar way she had several times before. Only this time they were naked in the middle of the night in the snow, and it was more cold than awkward. Beau put her arms around Yasha’s neck and held on, shivering because of the freezing temperature but even more so over the fact that she found herself pressed against Yasha tightly. 

“I just wanted you to see it from above,” Yasha explained as she flew them over the impressive imprint left in the snow, the light from the lantern and the cold blue light from the moon providing just enough illumination for them to be able to see it.  
“I knew it would look cool! Let’s hope it won’t snow any more overnight, I bet we could impress Inkeri with that,” Beau chuckled and Yasha laughed. 

Beau loved the sound of her laugh; it was low and a little husky, and every time she heard it, she felt a little warm in her heart because it used to be so rare to ever hear that, and lately, Yasha had been laughing a lot more. It felt good knowing she seemed to be feeling better. 

“She didn’t seem the type who would be impressed by anything,” Yasha commented as they landed on the doorstep and she let Beau get down from her arms. 

“Fair point,” Beau agreed. Yasha’s wings disappeared almost as quickly as they had appeared in the first place, and they hurried back inside and into the warmth, Beau grabbing several pieces of wood with her and refilling the sauna stove to keep the fire going while Yasha mixed some hot water with cold to have a bucket of comfortable temperature water to wash up with.

“Hey, could you do me a favor?” Beau then asked, running her hand over the side of her head.  
“Anything,” Yasha responded immediately. 

“Would you give me a haircut? I remember you shaved Caleb’s beard once and mentioned you do things like that regularly, and my hair’s gotten a little too long on the sides and back, you know I prefer it short. Can you do that for me?”  
“Of course, just let me go get my sword,” Yasha said, exited the sauna and went to retrieve it.

Beau poured water over the stones to heat up the sauna while she waited, leaning back and closing her eyes, still unable to stop shivering a little, the tremor no longer having anything to do with her being cold, and being all about the thought of being pressed against Yasha like she had been just a moment ago.

“I think we might fit,” Yasha said as she returned, holding the Magician’s judge, carefully moving it around in the room to see how well she could maneuver it. Once certain there was enough room to move around, she pulled out a small wooden stool from under the benches and Beau went to take a seat. Yasha moved to stand behind her and instructed Beau to tie up the long hair and move it out of the way, and she did as she was told.

Beau closed her eyes as Yasha got to work. She placed her fingers under Beau’s jawline and gently pushed up, urging Beau to tilt her head to the right, and she gave into the movement. 

_Huh, that was weird,_ Beau mused when she felt a tingly sensation cascade down her scalp, across the back of her neck and down along her spine as she listened to the sound of Yasha’s breath, the sound of the fire humming and crackling in the stove, the wooden catwalk creaking gently under Yasha as she moved, and the sounds of the blade ever so carefully and gently scraping against her scalp. It was a weird sensation but also pleasant. It was kind of making her sleepy. 

She couldn’t help but admire the careful softness of Yasha’s touches when she worked and when she occasionally adjusted Beau’s head to get a better angle. It was the most wonderful contradiction; the tall woman with the rough, calloused and scarred hands wielding a giant sword to do something as intricate as cutting hair, and managing to do it with such ease and dexterity. 

For Beau personally the most brilliant part of it all was that she was not worried in the slightest. She was relaxed, she trusted Yasha fully, she was tempted to just let her head loll back and rest against Yasha’s abdomen, and fall asleep listening to her breath. 

“And...we are finished,” Yasha spoke after a while, breaking the spell, and Beau opened her eyes, inhaling deeply, being dragged back to reality from the wonderful state of half-asleep where she’d been for the past several minutes.  
“Oh, already?” Beau sat up straight, unable to contain a yawn as she ran her hand over the back of her freshly shaven head. 

Yasha poured water over her to rinse off the shavings and then did the same to her sword before disappearing into the other room for a moment, probably to dry the blade before putting it away. 

“Wanna wash my back?” Beau asked when Yasha returned, holding up a cloth she’d dunked in the warm water and crumpled up in her hand. Again, not an unusual request made from friends when stopping by at bathhouses or spending time in the hot tub at Xhorhaus, but still different, laced with much more intimacy than ever before.

“Sure,” Yasha nodded and sat behind her, scrubbing Beau’s back and shoulders firmly but gently. It took Beau all her willpower to keep herself from just falling back into Yasha’s arms, this time with noticeably less dramatic exaggeration than she’d done it with before when she’d done it for fun and just for the joy of being carried by Yasha. 

“Do you want me to—?” Beau then asked, gesturing vaguely at her back once Yasha had rinsed her off.  
“Yeah, sure,” Yasha nodded and turned to face away after handing Beau the cloth. 

“Can I ask you something?” Beau inquired as she ran the cloth over the backs of Yasha’s shoulders.   
“Go for it.”

“Does it hurt? Your wings?” Beau said, pausing to softly touch the marks on Yasha’s shoulder blades, the spots where the wings came out from.   
“Kind of but not really. Like, I know it’s happening, I feel it, but it’s not exactly painful if not entirely pleasant either,” Yasha replied. 

“I also noticed your hair’s changed color when your wings changed.”  
“Yeah, I still don’t know what it means...other than maybe that...I’m getting better. Healing.”

“From..?”  
“...everything,” Yasha mumbled and Beau decided to leave the subject alone despite hearing a faint hint of a smile in Yasha’s voice.

“Do you want me to wash your hair?” Beau changed the subject and Yasha was silent for a moment as she tried to make a decision.  
“You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever done that for me. Not that I can remember.”

“Then you’re in for a treat,” Beau chuckled. She moved to sit cross-legged on the upper bench while Yasha went to take a seat in front of her on the lower bench, facing away from Beau, tilting her head back a little. Beau poured water over Yasha’s hair, running her fingers through it as she did, noting that the roots of Yasha’s hair were also noticeably lighter; not as white as the ends, more a shade of light gray, but no longer black. 

“I had no idea your hair is so soft, it’s like a puppy’s fur, only really thick. It’s really nice,” Beau complimented as she went to rub the bar of soap between her hands until they were thoroughly lathered, when sunk her fingers into Yasha’s hair and began to spread the soap into it.  
“Um, thank you, I...grew it myself,” Yasha muttered, her eyes closed as Beau raked her fingernails over Yasha’s scalp repeatedly and then massaged it.

Beau could’ve been done with washing the hair in a minute if she’d wanted to but she much preferred to take her time, giving Yasha what she hoped would be an unforgettable experience. The movements of her fingers slowed down the longer she kept at it, going from actively washing the hair to absent-mindedly rubbing her fingertips against Yasha’s skull, distracted by the intense temptation of just leaning over and giving Yasha an upside-down kiss. 

_No, no, no, don’t be stupid, and don’t do anything stupid,_ Beau snapped internally, sitting up straight almost as if someone had yanked her back when she realized she was already kind of leaning forward. She swallowed hard, cleared her throat a little and grabbed the remaining bucket of water, beginning to slowly pour it over Yasha’s hair to help rinse it. 

“Thank you. That was...well, even at the risk of sounding like Caduceus, that was nice,” Yasha smiled.  
“My pleasure,” Beau smiled back. 

“I think I’m cleaner than I’ve been in months.”  
“Same,” Beau chuckled. 

“I think I’m gonna go towel off and get dressed,” Yasha then said and stood up.

 _Nooo, don’t get dressed, you’re so sexy,_ Beau mentally protested, but merely mumbled something affirmative out loud as she watched Yasha step out into the dressing room which also served as the bedroom. She followed Yasha after once more rinsing off in the sauna and placing the cast iron skillet onto the stones to heat it up. 

Once dried off and dressed, Yasha went to put some of the meat they’d brought onto the skillet to cook while Beau began rummaging through their belongings, looking for Veth’s flask. She unscrewed the cap and took a swig, went to Yasha and offered her the flask.

“Thanks,” she accepted it and took a drink before turning her attention to the cooking thin slices of meat on the skillet. She gripped them by the edge and flipped them over, quickly sucking on the tip of her thumb and then her index finger afterward to remove the hot grease from them.

Beau handed her the bread she’d brought, it was on the cusp of becoming stale, so it was either eat it now or never. Yasha moved the meat to one side of the skillet and then put the bread in there as well, toasting it a little and letting it soak up the delectable liquid that had gathered in the pan.

They ate, sitting side by side on the bed, the door to the sauna open, warmth spreading from there to fill the bedroom/dressing room as well. 

“This was a lot of fun,” Yasha said, finished her sandwich and drank a generous amount of water afterward to make up for the dehydration, Beau doing the same, only now becoming aware of how thirsty she was.   
“Yes it was, thanks for doing this with me,” she commented. 

“No, thank you,” Yasha said and belched loudly. “Uhp, excuse me,” she blew out a breath, and Beau chuckled.  
“It’s fine, I can’t believe you even bothered excusing yourself.”

“I can’t either,” Yasha smirked and moved on to take a drink from Veth’s flask this time.   
“What do you think we’ll find out there?” Beau inquired, accepted the flask when Yasha passed it to her and drank from it before handing it back as they continued drinking, taking turns.

“I wish I could tell you. But, whatever it is, I feel like...this is where we should be. Obviously we can’t know what’s gonna happen but at least we’re here for it,” Yasha spoke, and Beau nodded.   
“Yeah, we are certainly living in interesting times,” she sighed.

“I’ll drink to that,” Yasha said and took a big swallow from the flask.   
“Whatever happens”— Beau began to say but cut herself off before she let her original thought slip out.

_Whatever happens, I love you._

“Uh...whatever happens, I’m glad we did this. I’m glad you and I got to hang out like this. I’m glad I met you. I’m glad I met everyone, you guys have been more of a family to me than my blood-relatives ever have been,” she said instead.   
“I feel the same way about you. About you. All. All of you, I mean,” Yasha stammered, and stared at the flask, turning it a little in her hand. “I think Inkeri wasn’t joking about the sauna making you get drunk more easily.”

Beau chuckled. She wasn’t sure if Inkeri had meant that the effect only took place if you were in the sauna or if it lingered even after, but considering she, too, was beginning to feel a comfortable light buzz in her head, she didn’t dismiss the possibility. Either that or then their tolerance had magically gotten much lower, or the liquor in the flask was much stronger than they knew. 

“Maybe we should call it a night, I am kinda sleepy.”  
“Yeah, same. You can have the bed,” Yasha said and was already about to stand up when Beau grabbed her forearm and stopped her.

“Don’t be ridiculous, the floor is going to be freezing, and I refuse to sleep in the bed if I know you’re freezing on the floor.”  
“We could both sleep on the floor.”

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”  
“Impossible,” Yasha deadpanned, and Beau laughed, Yasha quickly losing her poker face and laughing too.

“Come on, let’s get in bed. This way we’ll keep each other warm, too,” Beau said, pulled the fur and the blanket underneath it back and slipped under them.   
“Okay, but it’s gonna be cramped,” Yasha said, and she wasn’t wrong. Thankfully, she didn’t mind sleeping on her back and Beau didn’t mind sleeping on her side, her back pressed into the wall next to the bed, her head resting on Yasha’s bicep, her arm over the tall woman’s midsection and her leg draped over Yasha’s waist. 

“Nonsense, perfectly comfortable,” Beau said after a minute or two of settling down. Yasha pulled the covers on them, carefully wrapping herself and Beau in, making sure all the edges were tucked properly to prevent any heat from escaping.   
“You good?” she asked, her arm gently tightening around Beau, her hand finding its way to rest on Beau’s shoulder. 

“More than good,” Beau whispered in the dark, pressing herself against Yasha tighter.   
“Perfect,” Yasha said, turning a little so that she almost lay on her side.

 _Oh, God,_ Beau whimpered internally and closed her eyes, her thoughts taken over by the myriad of pleasant sensations she could barely keep track of. Yasha’s breath against the top of her head, her solid, strong body pressed into Beau’s, her hand on Beau’s shoulder, and then, when Yasha turned, her other arm slowly moved to pull her into an embrace that left Beau’s heart hammering like a hyperactive smith. 

_What was it that Molly said?_ Beau tried to recall just as she was drifting to sleep in Yasha’s arms, feeling safe and warm in a way she didn’t think she ever had before. Molly had made the comment in jest, of that much Beau was sure, but it was somehow poetic and maybe a little ironic how accurate his statement turned out to be.

_“It’s a very swaddling hug, you’ve never experienced anything like it.”_

And she hadn’t.

* * *

Yasha dreamt. There was nothing unusual about it at first, it wasn’t one of the recurring nightmares she tended to have, it wasn’t particularly strange or fantastic, just fragments of memories and the day’s events mottled together by her mind, forming a disjointed and weird reality that still somehow made perfect sense. Then the dream shifted and Yasha found herself back home, but instead of it being on the barren land typical of Xhorhas, the abode was surrounded by a field of flowers that extended beyond what the eye could see, brilliant and vibrant colors waving in the gentle breeze that carried the scent of wild flowers. Then Yasha saw her.

In the middle of the flowers stood Zuala, everything about her just as Yasha remembered except for one detail: she was for one reason or another now sporting a hairstyle very similar to Beau’s.

“You’re here. I can’t even remember if I’ve seen you since...” Yasha trailed off.

She’d seen flashes, fragments, ghosts. She’d heard Zuala’s disembodied voice speak to her. But she hadn’t met her, not like this, not properly, in her dreams since...possibly never, now that she thought about it.

“It’s so good to see you,” Yasha said and reached out to gently grip her hand, but pulled back before touching, afraid that if she did, it would shatter the illusion and the beauty surrounding her would vanish forever.  
“It’s good to see you too, my love.”

“I miss you, every day. But there have been days when I haven’t thought about you as much as I think I should’ve, and I feel kind of terrible about that.”

“We both know why you’ve been preoccupied, and I wish you’d accept that it’s a good thing. I don’t want you to feel bad over this. I don’t want you to keep insisting you should remain loyal to me for some dumb rule that you just made up because you kind of like being miserable. You were more than I ever imagined I'd have, and what we had was so very special, but you have to let me go, sweetheart,” Zuala smiled, and the dream shifted a little, Yasha suddenly finding herself sitting in the field of flowers next to Zuala, her hand in Yasha’s, their fingers intertwined.

“I want you to be happy. She makes you happy, why are you fighting it?”  
“It’s not that I’m necessarily fighting it, I just...I turn into such a mess around her, it’s embarrassing.”

“Oh, baby, you were always a mess, I just let it slide because you’re cute,” Zuala laughed softly and lifted Yasha’s hand a little to be able to softly kiss her knuckles.   
“That’s comforting,” Yasha scoffed amusedly. “Then there’s the little thing of me kind of killing her that’s a little awkward.”

“You’re not awkward, you’re scared, and it makes sense, of course you’re scared of losing her.”  
“I lost you, I don’t think my heart could handle going through something like that again,” Yasha muttered, and Zuala cupped Yasha’s cheek with her palm, gently urging her to turn her head and look at her. 

“Worrying about losing what you have is the inevitable consequence of happiness.”  
“If that’s true then happiness makes me miserable.”

“Yasha...allow yourself this. After everything that you’ve been through, you found love, don’t let it slip from your grasp just because you’re afraid of the possibility of losing her. Just be glad you have a lot to lose but don’t worry about it too much, worrying all the time would serve only to waste your life,” Zuala said, a warm smile on her face. She pulled on Yasha gently, and Yasha gave into the movement, leaning closer as Zuala pressed a soft kiss onto her lips, then rested her forehead against Yasha’s. 

“This isn’t real, but she is. Tell her how you feel, and don’t use me as an excuse to hold back, you know I want you to enjoy your love for her. You’ve already spent too much of your life letting my death slowly kill you too.”

When Yasha looked up, she realized she was no longer in the dream, waking up to the light blue early morning in the cabin, Beau snuggled up against her, her head tucked under Yasha’s chin, her breath on Yasha’s neck. She didn’t want to move and risk waking Beau but the discomfort of being still for too long was quickly settling in her back. Beau made a noise and slowly opened her eyes, looking up to Yasha, mild confusion in her eyes for a moment before she recalled where they were and why.

“Good morning,” Yasha smiled.  
“Nooo, it can’t be morning yet, I won’t have it,” Beau muttered and burrowed deeper under the blanket, pressing the side of her face against Yasha’s chest in an attempt to hide from what little light there was. Yasha was about to say something when suddenly she heard a familiar voice talk in her head, and despite it being a familiar voice with no vicious intent behind it, the fact that someone else was in her head made Yasha cringe a little. 

_“Hiii Yashaaa, it’s meee, Jesteeer! Fjord won’t tell me where you are. Are you schnuggling with Beau? Will you be back soon?”_

_Well, at least she didn’t ask if I was—_

_“You pooping?”_

_—there it is,_ Yasha chuckled internally. 

“Yes, hello, we will be back soon. No, I’m not pooping.”  
“Jester?” Beau laughed despite surely already knowing it was unlikely anyone else in the world would message someone out of the blue to ask if they were having a bowel movement.

“Indeed. I guess we should head back.”  
“Five more minutes,” Beau insisted and snuggled back into the spot between Yasha’s shoulder and neck. 

“All right,” Yasha agreed, swallowing hard at the closeness. _I want to kiss her so badly._

She gave Beau another hour of sleep, and she didn’t kiss her, not that day. However, she did decide that she would one day. It didn’t seem like a big change, but it made all the difference.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated. :) Also, please, no spoilers, I'm only at episode 120, so don't tell me anything. :D Also, if you like playlists, I made a couple on Spotify so head on over to check them out if you wanna. :)  
> [Yasha the reborn](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3kUCG9GjinbzisiBaiQRNp)  
> [Mighty Nein tunes](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4B9kjH4bk8kIVgLUvHeZvn)
> 
> And if you happen to be curious about Inkeri's accent, check out this (slightly exaggerated but only slightly) dub of a classic scene that utilizes it nicely. xD [Pulp Fiction But Samuel L. Jackson Has a Finnish Accent](https://youtu.be/vQf5AQGUVJY)


End file.
